Furry Tales (Part 2)

The story so far:

Dyson (hunter-cat) had managed to pull the hamster cage (temporary wire version because the smart cat-proof one was delayed in the post) off a five-foot high shelf. Rosemary and Lavender (female hamsters) were safe, if somewhat shell-shocked) but Basil (male hamster) was missing.

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Luc arrived home about five minutes after me, checked the girls over and declared them unharmed, and transferred them into their new habitat. If only it had arrived one day earlier!

We then started to look to see if we could find any trace of Basil. The good news was that there was no blood anywhere - but that doesn't mean much.

Then .... we caught sight of him scurrying behind the sofa for cover!

It quickly became obvious that we weren't going to catch him. (well, think about it - if Dyson couldn't, we had no chance), so our best idea was to try to trap him.

The wire cage was put on the floor under the computer desk, next to the sofa, with food and water inside. A tray was put on top to make it darker, and the door was wedged open with a cocktail stick in the hope it would break and snap the door shut if Basil went in. Yes, Luc used to watch the A-Team .....

Unfortunately the plan didn't quite come togther. Almost, but not quite. The following morning we had an empty hamster cage, door still propped open - and when I say empty, that includes the food and drink. Basil had obviously satisfied his nutritional needs, but then made (another) clean get-away.

Two or three more days passed. We didn't catch Basil. And since a male hamster was somewhat essential to our breeding plans, he had to be replaced. Suddenly, male Chinese dwarf hamsters seemed awfully rare ....

But then we found Lewis. Lewis was introduced to the girls in the smart, cat-proof hamster condominium (I'm not joking!) and, after some initial skirmishing, they seemed to settle down quite well.

Luc broke the bad news to me when I got home from work a few days later. He had come downstairs that morning (after I had left for work) to find the new cage on the floor, one of the girls seriously injured .... and the other in the process of being eaten by Dyson.

Dyson must have climbed from the desk on to the back of the chair and jumped, and managed to drag the whole set-up off the shelf.

We couldn't blame Dyson - he is a cat, after all, and we had put temptation in his path. Well, five feet above his path .....

The other girl hamster died within a few minutes. Lewis seemed shaken but unharmed, so he was put back in the hamster condo ontop of a vivarium, about six feet up. Procedures were put into place to make sure that no furniture was left where Dyson could use it to get at Lewis.

Snowball (the cat who doesn't believe in cat-like pastimes) looked rather smug.

And we were left wondering what to do with one male Chinese dwarf hamster.